Sunday, April 11, 2010

Glencoe Icebreaker 10K

The game plan for this week was to arrive at the start line for the Glencoe 10K with tired legs. On Tuesday I ran an easy 30 minutes. Wednesday was my two hour long run. On Friday I ran 53 minutes of speed work with 8 x 2:00 speed intervals. 20 some odd miles of running this week including speed work? Crazy!

For Glencoe I figured I had nothing to lose. My goal was to run uncomfortably…to push as hard as I could just to see what I was capable of. If I blew up, oh well! I could blame my hard week. Best case scenario I might just surprise myself. When I told my friend and teammate Sharon about my goals her eyes just lit up. She told me that whenever I thought it was getting hard that I just needed to tell myself that I could do this and she was really encouraging. (Sharon…by the way….is super speedy!)I didn’t want to make the mistake of starting too far back from the start line, so I got right up close. This way I wouldn’t have to dodge and weave through the crowd early on. At 9 am sharp, the gun went off and down the street we went! I had no strategy…just to push. I picked out a few folks in the crowd that I wanted to keep in my sight and just went for it.Mile 1 – 8:16

One mile done…let’s see whether I can hang on. Near the end of the two mile mark is the big hill for the course. How would my legs feel after tackling that hill?

Mile 2 – 9:00

I survived the hill! Luckily there was a bit of net downhill to help my legs recover, and some beautiful city views and houses around to look at. The kilometres seemed to be flying by, although I never was able to be quite as speedy as I was in the first mile.

Mile 3 – 8:48, 5K – 27:03

OK, halfway through. Time to try and hang on and bring this home! The best part about this mile is that it is through an out and back section. I was able to see a bunch of teammates. I waved at them all, although I didn’t quite have it in my to shout out. The encouragement from seeing my friends was a nice pick me up!

Mile 4 – 8:55

The end of the mile was at the turn around for the out and back. I got to see more friends along this section and then it was into Stanley Park for a few little hills along the way. I tried to not look at my Garmin and just focus on running…one foot in front of the other. People were passing me but I didn’t care. I was just trying to hold on!

Mile 5 – 9:09

There was a sign and folks calling out our time with one mile left to go. They were reminding us that we had breakfast waiting for us, so to just run hard to hurry up and get to breakfast!! I knew I was in position to set a new PR, I just needed to keep this up. I didn’t want to ease off and let a PB slip through my fingers.

Mile 6 – 8:51

As I hit 6 miles I arrived at the right turn on to Elbow Drive and the final push to the finish line. Sharon was there waiting for me and as soon as she saw me she jumped in to push me through to the finish line. I had forgotten that there was still a fair distance to the finish and I picked it up…but maybe just a bit too fast. Sharon ran just a step ahead of me, telling me that my pace was great, that I had this, and she picked out people out ahead to focus on trying to catch. I was wheezing…sounding like I was going to die…but I just hung on. I couldn’t say anything to Sharon as that would have taken too much energy so I just did what I could to push. Having her there, there was no arguing that I couldn’t do this!

All of a sudden there was the finish line and friends cheering me in!

Mile 0.26 – 2:08 (8:13/mi pace)

Final Garmin time – 55:10 Gun time – 55:16 Overall 264 out of 544 Females 30-34 – 12 out of 27

I couldn’t believe it, I set a new PR, and by a 1:11…and it was a whole 3:19 faster than the St. Patrick’s Day 10K. I owe Sharon a huge thanks for pushing me at the end. I was absolutely done at the end of the 10K so I know I gave it all I had. So there we go…a super busy week of running and I still managed to eke out a new best. I’m definitely happy!!!

Yay!! I think you still would have done it without me there, but I was super pumped about your race strategy and confidence before the race I just had to see you in!!And you did it on tired legs!! WOW!!!!